Wymondham commutes in two directions and works from home in a third, so lots of people have an important external hard drive sitting on the kitchen table. When one stops, it takes a trip to the bench by tracked post and comes back with an answer.
Wymondham jobs are diagnosed free. You will receive a single fixed quote in writing before any work starts, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
The abbey has stood over this town since 1107. Its two towers are the result of a disagreement between the monks and the parishioners that went on for centuries, which is a good reminder that even things built to last still need looking after. Wymondham's modern data risk is much quieter. Many people in the NR18 area work at home for firms in Norwich, Cambridge or London: consultants, designers, accountants and researchers. Their work lives on one laptop and one backup drive plugged into the same extension lead. If that lead takes a surge, both copies go together, and the search that follows is usually for data recovery specialists rather than for another computer shop. Around them are the small businesses on the Ayton Road and Browick Road estates, the shops around the Market Cross, and households whose photographs stopped being printed around 2006 and have lived on a disc ever since.
The service is post-in, and always has been. First, get a quote either over the telephone or using our free online diagnostic. Next remove the bare drive, add some padding so nothing rattles, then post it to us tracked and insured. It will be at the bench the next working day from any Wymondham counter. Alternatively, you can use a courier you already book; that is your arrangement to make and to pay for. However, if you happen to be heading down the A11 anyway, simply leave it at our desk: Cambridge Data Recovery, Compass House, Vision Park, Chivers Way, Cambridge CB24 9AD, open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed, approximately 2 minutes off the A14 at Junction 32. There is no collection service, so nothing depends on you being in for a van.
Everything then runs the same way. There is no cost for the diagnostic; it finishes within 2 working days of receiving your parcel and ends with a phone call naming the fault and one fixed figure in writing. Logical recoveries (deleted work, corruption, a volume that will not mount) are work where you only pay if we recover your data. Any type of physical damage, including electrical faults, water and fire, means our head-swap bench or board-level repair, and 50% of the quote is paid before that work begins, with the remaining balance due only if your data comes back. All forensic work, such as ransomware, camera recorders and BitLocker, is paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote.
Two boundaries worth knowing before you pack anything: phones and tablets are out, as is memory soldered directly onto a logic board. The drive will have to be able to be unplugged or unscrewed for us to work on it. Hethersett, Spooner Row, Hingham, Barford, Mulbarton and the villages either side of the A11 all use the same tracked post-in route, and 0800 689 0668 costs nothing to ring from any of them.
Most items arrive at this bench by insured and tracked post. We recommend getting a quote first, either by telephone or using our free online diagnostic, and once you have received your quote, simply post the item. Post is the steadiest way to move a poorly drive, and a parcel sent from Norfolk typically arrives on the bench within a working day.
Is the drive still bolted inside a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV / DVR recorder? Before sending, remove the hard disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD), as we do not accept whole units. From a DVR or recorder, send just the disk. From a server or RAID, take out the disks and clearly label each disk by bay number. A network attached storage (NAS) device may be sent as its disks if they can be removed; otherwise please send the NAS itself. There is only one type of drive we are unable to accept: storage soldered onto a motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs, extremely thin laptops). In such cases, if the storage cannot be taken out it cannot be accepted. If you are unsure whether you have a removable drive or not, call us before sending anything.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Please mark the parcel for the attention of Cambridge Data Recovery. It takes about an hour and twenty minutes to travel from Norwich along the A11, then two minutes off the A14 at Junction 32. Otherwise you can post it using a tracked service and we will receive it the following working day. We will contact you as soon as we have your drive and it is booked onto our bench.
If you're unsure of what to include in the box, please call us on 0800 689 0668 before sealing it. Or, for a first view on what we can do, you can use our free online diagnostic.
Diagnosis costs nothing, a fixed price is written down, and in most cases you will only be charged if we recover your data. Online or by phone.